


A Home Visit

by Haberdasher



Series: Good Omens Convenience Store AU [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Retail, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Names, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21666013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: Crowley finally stops into A. Z. Fell's bookshop.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Good Omens Convenience Store AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519901
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	A Home Visit

For once, Crowley wasn’t tired at the end of his latest shift.

...okay, that was a lie. Crowley was in fact _somewhat_ tired, but he had gotten to the point where he had accepted that some level of tiredness was just part of his default state of being now. The point was, he wasn’t exhausted like he usually was after a long shift at the convenience store, ready to go home and curl up in bed and wait to groan at the alarm when it stirred him back into consciousness some hours later. He had enough energy left to do something with himself, he just didn’t know _what_.

The trouble, of course, was that most things to do involved spending money, and Crowley didn’t really have any of that to spend on a whim right this moment, but he’d need to if he was going to spend a while in many of the nearby public spaces without risking someone accusing him of loitering. (Rubbish crime in the first place, loitering. All it really means is that you had the nerve to hang around somewhere without shelling out some cash along the way. In what universe did that deserve to be a crime?) He could just go back to his flat and try to find something to do there, but the place was pretty bare and his options pretty limited as a result.

If he didn’t think of something, he’d probably just end up talking to his pet cactus again because he didn’t have anyone else to talk to.

Christ, he knew he was a sorry case, but he was better than _that_ at least, wasn’t he?

...and with that, the idea arrived.

There was, in fact, one person who was _not_ a pet cactus and nonetheless managed to have decent conversations with Crowley more often than not these days, and said person just so happened to own a bookshop down the road.

Even if he couldn’t actually stop and have a chat with Mister Fell there, his bookshop seemed like as good a place as any to spend some free time, even if Crowley had never been especially keen on books.

Crowley didn’t have an exact address for the bookshop, but he started walking in the shop’s general direction, even though it was decidedly out of his way home, and simply hoped for the best.

It took longer than he’d expected to get there, but right as he was about ready to give up and call it a night, the bookshop miraculously appeared on the next street down.

It looked fairly fancy at a glance, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Nice big corner lot, too.

The sign for the bookshop mentioned an “A. Z. Fell,” which Crowley initially took as being Mister Fell’s initials (and he was then, privately, grateful to know that much more of Mister Fell’s full name), except the sign _also_ mentioned that the store had been there since 1800, which complicated matters a bit.

It was entirely possible that Mister Fell had the initials A. Z., and happened to have an ancestor who’d had the same set of initials.

It was also entirely possible that Mister Fell’s initials were something else altogether, and that the sign merely mentioned the initials of the shop’s original owner.

It was _also_ entirely possible that Mister Fell’s initials were A. Z. and the initial owner’s weren’t, but that the shop had updated its sign to reflect current ownership.

Hell, maybe the initials were part of a name that was passed down in the family through the generations. Maybe Mister Fell was A. Z. Fell the Third, or the Fifth, or the Nineteenth.

It’s not like Crowley had any way of knowing, really.

Crowley walked into the shop, which had a little bell that went off when someone entered just like the convenience shop did, and while the sound was different, it was still enough to set him ever so slightly on edge.

The shop’s appearance differed significantly enough from that of the convenience store to calm his nerves some, though.

For one thing, there was no clear counter at which to check out once one was finished finding books to purchase, nor even, at a glance, a cash register to use for such purchases. Unlike the wide aisles of the convenience store, illuminated by bright fluorescent lighting, the bookshop’s passageways were less clearly-defined and harder to navigate, with the place covered in a dim yellow light from a number of ornate lamps. While the convenience store generally lacked items that didn’t have a clear purpose (or whose purpose was not, in some way, to get customers to buy things), the bookshop was riddled with statues and illustrations and other oddities.

While the convenience store was corporate and sterile, the bookshop seemed... cozy. Crowley knew well enough that most shops weren’t in the business of seeming cozy, but he wasn’t about to object to this one departing from that norm.

Mister Fell was inside, of course, and looked Crowley’s way shortly upon him entering the shop, putting down a book he had clearly been in the middle of perusing.

“Oh, hello there! Crowley, was it?”

Crowley thought (or, perhaps, simply hoped) that Mister Fell’s uncertainty about his name seemed feigned, that Mister Fell in fact knew Crowley’s name as well as Crowley knew Mister Fell’s. (Or better, even, given that Mister Fell would presumably know Crowley’s first and last name, while Mister Fell was still... just Mister Fell to him. Possibly A. Z. Fell. The jury was still out on that one.)

“Yeah, thought I’d check the place out, since you keep going on about it... probably won’t buy anything, though, I’m afraid, still flat broke and all that.”

Crowley had expected Mister Fell to look disappointed at the news that Crowley wouldn’t be able to spend any money in his shop, but instead he looked oddly relieved.

“Not a problem, not a problem! Say, how do you like the place?”

Crowley looked around the bookshop, with its dim lamp lighting and its oddities on display and its maze-like passageways that had clearly been formed on a whim rather than by some corporate decree, for a moment before answering.

“It’s nice, I suppose. Not really the kind of place I’d normally go, but I like it well enough. I can tell you put a lot of hard work into keeping the place up, and... and it suits you, I think.”

As Crowley finished saying his last few words, he looked over at Mister Fell and saw that the other man was positively beaming.

Had his words really been that high a compliment?

Looking at that smile, though, looking at how content and satisfied Mister Fell appeared after hearing what Crowley thought of his workplace, Crowley couldn’t complain about his speech’s reception in the slightest.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
